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Anglican Cathedral of Maseru takes a green initiative

Posted on: February 3, 2014 1:40 PM
The Anglican Cathedral of Maseru
Related Categories: acen, environment, Lesotho, Maseru, Southern Africa

[Green Anglicans]The Anglican Cathedral of Maseru has joined hands in order to create change environmentally. Having an understanding of energy and water scarcity, the youth took it as their responsibility to take action towards sustaining these resources. Based in Maseru, the Capital of Lesotho, the Cathedral is centrally situated, making it one of the key places to initiate a project towards energy efficiency, sustainable and renewable energy. On the 18th of December 2013 an energy and water audit was conducted with the support of Tsepho Hlasoa from SAFCEI. This involved a site walk about. Results of the audit were used to gauge the Cathedral’s water and energy footprint.

The Maseru Anglican Cathedral has more than one surrounding building including an accommodation centre, which was built to also generate income for the church. The accommodation centre was therefore included in the audit as it uses water and electricity frequently.

In the report of the audit, electricity consumption was divided into categories, and hot water cylinders (Geysers) came out to be using about 70% of the electricity and each of other appliances including the refrigerator, lights, equipment etc. sharing the remaining 30%.

Water usage which included the church and the accommodation centre were almost divided equally between sewage and catering. Sewage uses up to 50% water inclusive of bathrooms, toilets and water from the laundry. Catering uses up to 36% accumulated through daily preparations of meals for the accommodation centre. Cleaning and gardening share the remaining 14% of water however cleaning uses most of it.

The Cathedral in response to environmental issues and climate change, has installed water tanks to reduce tap water and they make use of solar powered water heaters to cut down level of energy use.

The following recommendations were made:

  • A brick or 2 litre container of water is placed in each toilet.
  • This reduces water consumption by 2 litres at each flush
  • Geyser blankets be purchased and timers put on the geysers
  • All staff be encouraged to switch off lights and reduce water usage.

The Diocese of Lesotho will be having an Environmental Conference on the 31st May 2014